Jobs on the Horizon

Friday, February 6

I spent much of the day organizing my professional situation in Chile. Since I had little to build off of, I had no where to go but up. I had been making many contacts throughout my first couple of weeks here through all of the friends and contacts of Lily. We knew people from a variety of backgrounds who were working in every business imaginable. So today I began managing the contacts and making progress with a number of possible projects.

First, down the street from Lily’s office is the Tompkins House which is the managing headquarters for Parque Pumalin. Parque Pumalin is a huge national park land reserve in southern Chile Patagonia that was started by and American named Doug Tomkins. He bought large pieces of land to prevent development in Patagonia and eventually was able to connect all of the purchased land and make it into a nationally recognized land preserve and conservation park. This seemed like a great place to which I could offer my services because it overlapped both with my studies at Harvard in anthropology and with my professional experience in business development. Lily and I set up a time to meet with the director of the office on Monday, and I had begun my march towards gaining professional experience in Chile. While this was no guarantee by any means it was at least a step in the right direction.

I continued the momentum from Parque Pumalin into the scheduling of another meeting on Monday with a man named Jimmy Langman. Jimmy is correspondent and journalist for Newsweek in South America who had begun plans to start a magazine dedicated to Patagonia. I met Jimmy at the Superbowl party hosted by my new Canadian friend Russ. The purpose of the meeting on Monday was to discuss my possible involvement with the development of the magazine and getting the project up off the ground. Jimmy was interested in my experience in business development with the Patriots and wanted to learn more about it to see how I could be used as an asset for his magazine. 2 possibilities knocked off in one day….not bad.

In addition to the two meetings I had scheduled for Monday, I had also scheduled my first English lesson with one of our doormen Jaime. Monday will be an action packed day. It has a lot of promise, and hopefully I can capitalize on the potential.

In the evening, Lily and I took a stroll through Parque Phillippi, which is located just up the road from her office. Parque Phillippi is a small wildlife park in Puerto Varas where the large crucifix over-looking the city is located. It was about a 30 minute walk through the park to the top of the hill, and the views of the city below were breathtaking. We had a crystal clear day and could see everything. After snapping some pictures, we made our way down on a different path and found the most spectacular view of Volcan Osorno through the thick brush and trees. I know I talk about how remarkable the scenery is in just about every entry on my blog, but in all honesty this place never ceases to amaze me. Every day we find a new vantage point and a new natural landmark that seems more amazing than the last.

As we made our way home we got a call from our friends Russ and Karem, who invited us to an asado at their house for dinner. We met some of their friends who were in town for a perma-culture class. Perma-culture, I learned, is a self-sustaining lifestyle in which all aspects of these people’s lives revolves around making, growing, and recycling all of the materials they need/use. It’s a little hippy for me, but they have great intentions and do good things for the earth.